


Dressing-Down

by Zither



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Cyborgs, F/F, Resurrection, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-18 12:52:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5929141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zither/pseuds/Zither
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some complications not even Miranda foresaw.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dressing-Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [worstcommander](https://archiveofourown.org/users/worstcommander/gifts).



> Thank you for giving me such a fantastic set of prompts to work with! The Miranda/FShep ones especially intrigued me - I hope this is close enough to suit.

The second time they slept together, Miranda found the scar.

The first time, she’d been too distracted to care. It was uncharacteristic. Some part of her had assumed she would be able to keep her distance, to retain some small trace of objectivity when faced with Shepard’s naked form in a far more pleasant context than the last one. If she was honest with herself, it had been part of her reasoning when she chose the engine room. Self-conscious performance was a given in that sort of environment: harsh, mechanical, overhead lights spilling illumination into every deserted corner. Both of them would be thrown off balance. Neither would fall too hard.

That had been the idea. In practice, old habits died easy. Somewhere between Shepard’s wide, earnest eyes fixed on her own and Shepard’s wide, earnest mouth muttering "this okay?" into her collarbone, she had forgotten to hold back. She had lost control, just as she was on the verge of losing it now. The cabin’s lights were softer, but still bright enough to dazzle. When Miranda let her eyes fall shut, she saw sunspots, sharp-edged against the dark behind her lids.

A few strands of her hair had managed to get caught under Shepard’s elbow. That situation would get uncomfortable fast if she moved her head, but it wasn’t pressing enough to matter. Tired of chafing, she found the hem of Shepard’s vest and began to tug it upward. Her hands slid over the skin underneath, learning the lines and dips of Shepard’s back all over again. Shepard made little noises against her neck whenever she found a sensitive spot, and her whole body went tense as if she were anticipating a fight. Laughing a little, she explored further - and there it was, a seam running down the curve of her spine.

Miranda flinched hard enough to turn the hair trap into a real problem. She let out a small, undignified yelp. Almost before she could process it, Shepard was up and moving. _Impressive reflexes_ , the analytical part of her said, while another one reacted to the genuine concern on Shepard’s face. “What’s wrong?”

“That scar,” Miranda said. It came out harsher than she’d intended. She took a moment to compose herself, wanting to sift through her next handful of words. “The one cutting right from your neck to your tailbone.”

“Lawson.” The worry was beginning to fade from Shepard’s features. Annoyance and amusement vied to replace it. “Are we calling a time-out so you can interrogate me about some ancient surgical scratch?”

“We might be.” Miranda pursed her lips. “You told me they’d all healed up, Shepard.” _Doctor Chakwas told me the same_ , she refrained from saying. She did not want to emphasise her own access to Shepard’s medical records, any more than she wished to dwell on the fact that Shepard must have read hers.

“It has,” Shepard said. Her shoulders were hunched, posture defensive. Miranda couldn’t blame her. On an intellectual level, she knew her reaction was unfair. “I mean, they have. That one feels worse than it is, if you’re just fumbling at it in the dark.” A grin, somewhat forced. “It’s a smudge on the glorious map of getting your ass kicked from Shrike to Hades that is me.”

Pure Shepard, that remark. At any other time, Miranda might have been forced to suppress a smile. Instead, she found herself wrestling with an image: the suggestion of a jawline through Cerberus-standard retrieval fabric, and her own voice saying, _Yes, I can make something of this. Yes, if we repurpose the technology. Yes._

Worse still, Shepard was wearing the expression that meant she understood. Most of the time, that expression crossed her face just before she sat someone down for a heartfelt talk about family or friends or the ex-coworker they'd sworn on their honour to kill. Miranda fought the urge to fold her arms across her chest. Stripping down in front of Shepard didn’t make her feel half as naked as the full force of that stare did.

Shepard sat up. Even semi-nude, she moved like she was wearing full body armour; like nobody had ever taught her how to look at herself from the outside. For half a second, Miranda caught a flash of red behind her eyes.

“It’s weird as hell,” Shepard said. “Maybe weirder. I wouldn’t know.” There was a little more sincerity behind the grin she offered this time. She wet her lips as if to continue speaking, but did not. Her left hand rested between them on the quilt, uncertain.

 _I don’t know what you mean_ , Miranda might have said. She could visualise herself responding that way with no trouble at all: the arch tone, the raised eyebrow. Shepard might not buy the dismissal, but she’d let it go for now. No need to dredge up Alchera, or operating tables, or the lazy sideways coil of smoke corkscrewing from the Illusive Man’s cigar as he waited for a live report. _How is she_? Always _she_ , with him; never _it, the body, the corpse_. Even in death, Shepard had been a bone of contention. _The remains are as unresponsive as our initial test subjects were. Skin regrowth is not progressing as fast as I had hoped._

But she had dredged the memories up, and they were right out there on the surface for anyone to gawp at. The light caught Shepard’s profile as she turned her head away, and Miranda could not banish her knowledge of what lay underneath. She had mapped the contours of that skull by hand, calculating an accurate cheek incline in order to model it in three dimensions. She had shaped that face herself, sanding away the excess and relayering from scratch.

“It is,” Miranda said, at last. Some comfort. She felt an urge to turn Shepard’s wrist over and brush her fingers lightly across the pulse point. If she’d thought Shepard would take it in the spirit of reassurance, she might even have done so. Their first few days together on the Normandy had been rife with secret impulses of that kind: after two years sitting vigil over Shepard while machines monitored her every function and non-function, it was difficult to adjust.

“Too weird?”

“Shepard,” she said, “less than a week ago, I fought an infant Reaper on foot and helped blow up a base full of research potential just because your explanation as far as why we should blow it up made sense. After that, I told my boss to go to hell and invited the wrath of Cerberus down on all of us.” Just speaking those words invited a flash of fear. She bit her lip, ran through a list of all the resources at her fingertips. “We’re outliers.”

“All right.” Now that Miranda knew to look, she could not help but notice them: little cracks and seams running through the flesh, tiny fault lines threaded with crimson. When she lifted her eyes to Shepard’s face, though, she saw only tiredness. “Still. That doesn't answer my question.”

“No,” Miranda said. The mattress shifted a little in response to Shepard’s start. She had been anticipating a deferment, Miranda guessed, or some ambivalent remark. “I’ll get over it.” _Will you?_ was implicit in that, but she did not expect an answer. One day, Shepard might lay all her concerns regarding her return from the dead on Miranda herself. Not this day. She hovered on the threshold, too afraid of what she might hear to push beyond it.

Silence, then. The cabin had started to warm up, internal climate control adjusting to a new set of expectations. Miranda put her hand over Shepard’s, surprised to find that feeling of vulnerability gone. She could hear the sound of her own heartbeat ringing in her ears – and, if she listened hard enough, another.


End file.
